1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a thermally insulating member and, more particularly, to a structure of a thermally insulating member providing an excellent thermally insulating effect and using less material for environmental protection as well as greatly reducing the costs for storage and transportation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Persons engaged in the fields of extremely developed industries and businesses must provide the customers with fast and satisfactory commodities or services so as to have a place in the competing markets. With regard to the restaurant business, hot foods to be consumed at certain temperatures, such as coffee, tea, boxed meals, are extremely valued markets by large businesses.
To allow easy carriage and hold of a hot food, a thermally insulating member 1 is generally provided around a packaging material of the hot food. The thermally insulating member 1 avoids the customer from scalding on the hands by the high temperature of the hot food while allowing the customer to directly hold the hot food.
With reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, the conventional thermally insulating member 1 mainly includes a wavy thermally insulating layer 11 and a surface layer 12. The thermally insulating layer 11 is bonded to the surface layer 12 by an adhesive. In use of the conventional thermally insulating member 1, it is wrapped around an outer periphery of the packaging material of the hot food. In an example of a coffee cup A0 shown in the drawing, the thermally insulating layer 11 directly abuts the outer periphery of the coffee cup A0. Since the thermally insulating layer 11 is wavy, the thermally insulating layer 11 is in discontinuous contact with the coffee cup A0 to reduce direct transmission of the high temperature from the hot food in the cup A0 to the thermally insulating member 1. Thus, the thermally insulating member 1 possesses a thermally insulating effect. After wrapping the thermally insulating member 1 around the cup A0, a customer can directly hold the thermally insulating member 1 to avoid scalding by the high temperature of the hot food in the cup A0, providing the customer with convenience while holding the hot food for eating.
Although the conventional thermally insulating member 1 can insulate the high temperature of the hot food, the thermally insulating effect of the thermally insulating member 1 is mainly provided by reducing the contact area between the thermally insulating layer 11 and the packaging material of the hot food by discontinuous contact. However, the thermally insulating layer 11 of the thermally insulating member 1 is wavy and, thus, contacts with the packaging material of the hot food by a strip-shaped area, which is still relatively large and, thus, provides a limited thermally insulating effect. Namely, the thermally insulating effect of the conventional thermally insulating member 1 should be improved.
With reference to FIG. 2, the conventional thermally insulating member 1 is in a flattened state when not in use. To avoid the loss of the thermally insulating effect of the thermally insulating layer 11, the wavy shape of the thermally insulating layer 11 must not be destroyed no matter in the storage or transportation state. Thus, the conventional thermally insulating member 1 occupies a considerable space during transportation. Particularly, the large volume of the conventional thermally insulating member 1 results in a high transportation cost and causes high costs to persons in the hot food industry using the thermally insulating member 1. As a result, persons in the hot food industry lose their competitiveness due to the increased costs.
Thus, how to provide a thermally insulating member that is low cost in use while providing an excellent thermally insulating effect is a problem to be solved by the manufacturers of the thermally insulating members.